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Indies First is an all-year campaign by the American Booksellers Association to promote shopping at local, independent businesses. As part of Indies First and Small Business Saturday--November 29, 2014, the day following Black Friday--we will host local authors as booksellers! Come to the store to pick up great books for everyone on your holiday shopping list while also getting suggestions from your favorite Philadelphia authors.

On Sal Mal LaneRu Freeman “An achingly gorgeous heartbreaker,” (The Boston Globe) Ru Freeman’s novel On Sal Mal Lane takes place over the five years leading up to Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war. The children growing up on a quiet street in Colombo fill their days with cricket matches, tentative romances, and small rivalries, their innocence in sharp contrast to the petty biases of the adults charged with their care and the mounting tremors of encroaching violence. A social justice activist and freelance journalist, Freeman is also the author of A Disobedient Girl, a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. The world is a carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village Anna Badkhen The tiny, remote western Afghanistan village of Oqa is known for its beautiful carpets. Woven meticulously by hand, a carpet takes about seven months to make and its sale to a dealer for roughly $200 can sustain a family for a year. In her new book The world is a carpet, Anna Badkhen charts the lives of one family as their daughter-in-law, the family’s sole breadwinner, completes one magnificent carpet. She follows the family to weddings, funerals, through Ramadan and winter snowstorms, amid tedium and grinding poverty—made bearable by opium for young and old alike—faithfully documenting the harsh realities of staying alive. Parkway Central Library 1901 Vine Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (between 19th and 20th Streets on the Parkway) This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required. For more information, please call 215-567-4341, or click here